Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Have you purchased a piano or Digital via the internet?

I ended up buying my P250 locally (although it WAS at Guitar Center). I compared prices via online retailers, and got GC to match it. The P250 weighs 90+ lbs, and I'd hate to ship it back to an online retailer (IF I could).

Ideally, I would have purchased it locally from Veneman's or Rolls music, both of whom I bought lots of stuff from over the years in the DC area, but, unfortunately, both of those stores are long gone, in the wake of Mars Music/Guitar Center/Online sales.....(Mars Music is long gone, too...)

From the little shopping I have done that would be the problem, the price locally isn't ok. I have found differences of hundreds of dollars. Now, I know many of you find it hard to believe, but for some of us, hundreds of dollars is alot of money. I would love to buy locally, but I am not going to throw money away to do it!

I bought my Casio PX-300 on eBay from a store. The stand and shipping were included and I didn't pay tax, so it was cheaper than buying locally.

I was annoyed about how long it took to ship. I can't remember if I contacted the store or it contacted me, but they were out of inventory, so I had to wait a couple of weeks for the store to get the DP and ship it. Had I known this upfront, I might have looked elsewhere online or just gone to Guitar Center. Other than that, the experience was fine.

I once bought a used Steinway grand via the internet, but that's not what you're interested in, is it? I get the feeling that you're wondering if it is worth while to save a few bucks buying an electronic keyboard via one of the two or three major internet retailers.

It is tempting to buy from a high-volume internet dealer as their prices may be perhaps a few percentage points lower and sales tax is usually not required, although I suspect this will change in the near future. Also, if you consider the cost of shipping against this savings there is usually little cost advantage to be gained.

However, any advantage in buying via the internet is lost the first time you run into a technical problem. Support if available from the internet dealer, is expensive considering that you are responsible for the cost of shiping your instrument back to the store or manufacturer. If Harmony-Central's user review pages are to be believed, manufacturer support from just about any of the large producers is equally lacking.

However, if you bought locally, you can simply drive the faulty board back to the store from which you made the purchase.

But this kind of decision means a great deal more to me than saving a hundred dollars or getting the product support I need if and when I need it. Bear with me and I'll explain what I mean...

Some of us are still lucky enough to have a downtown where we can go and congregate with like minded people. Small, locally-owned downtown music stores are a rare and endangered breed in these days of global markets and international corporations. If the local businesses are not supported by and within their community, they will dissapear.

Many of us are victims of this phenomenon, which began in the 1950s. We are doomed to a world without downtowns and local businesses. We consume in a word of strip malls and big box stores that employ low-wage service persons who function as little more than order clerks. Job disatisfaction and subsequent staff turnover is such that these clerks are interchangeable and generally anonymous. Their product knowledge is sometimes good but if you've had any experience shopping in the big box store, you can probably lay odds on the chance that you'll find someone who knows their product. 2:1? 3:1? 10:1? It all depends on where you're shopping.

When I finally do buy that Roland RD700SX, it will be from my local music store and not a big box like Guitar Center. Not only will I then be able to take advantage of their support if it is ever needed, but I'll have helped keep them in business.

We musicians are also rare and endangered and the locally-owned music store is a part of our community. These stores are places to go and meet others who share our values and interests. They are also places where one can learn and share one's learning. As a teenager, I hung out in these stores after school, worked behind the counter on saturdays, took lessons upstairs and later taught when I had something to teach. I learned a lot listening to and playing along with the pros that came in everyday.

Unfortunately, these places have been dissapearing from our communities for the past 40 years.

Personally, I'll buy locally because I want my local music stores to stay in business. It's still my community, after all.

BRAVO! Well spoken!

BUY LOCALLY!

Paul

ipgrunt, I agree with Paul that yours was a terrific post that articulates well the reasons we should try to support local businesses whenever possible. And I have done that when I can. I bought my microphone from a small local music store even though I could have gotten it 20% cheaper off the internet.

However, what if I'm shopping for a Roland, say, and in my case the local Roland dealer is someone I don't really want to do business with? (This is not a hypothetical example, by the way.) Imagine your worst stereotype of a pushy piano salesperson and he is it. He's the guy who told me that Mason & Hamlins were made in Korea as a last-ditch ploy when I told him that I didn't want to buy his used Baldwin L when I was shopping for a grand.

So I guess my question is this: Are the advantages of buying locally with a digital piano so large that it should overrule my desire not to do business with a guy whose business practices I really dislike? Question number 2: Most of the people weighing in on this thread appear to have bought keyboards rather than full-blown digital pianos with the attached case etc. Is it possible to get the larger digital pianos online, or would the shipping charges be prohibitive? Is there anything tricky involved in setting one of them up or is it just a matter of plugging it in and playing it?

Hi Monica,

A big part of "buying local" appeal is the readily available customer service. If the dealer in question is of questionable reputation, the merit local deal over Internet purchase suddenly vanishes.

For your second question, only a handful full size digital pianos are found on the e-vendors, excluding popular Yamaha Clavinova or Roland HP series right off the bat (in US; they are offered in UK). Yamaha YDP series can be mail ordered and some Internet vendors offer free shipping. Setting up just amounts using screws to attach the keyboard unit to the cabinet, taking about 10 minutes (two person job because it is heavy). Hope this helps.

TD

Monica -

Most of the pro-line shops (Guitar Center, Music 123, Sam Ash, Sweetwater, zZounds, etc.) will sell Korg digitals, Yamaha PF/YDP series or Casio Calviano pianos, but I think that Yamaha holds a pretty tight grip on the CLP/CVP distribution channels. I don't know if Roland is the same way with their HP's. Kurzweil is probably still riding the shock waves from Young Chang's recent legal/financial issues, so who knows how they're doing.

If you don't mind a non-traditional cabinet, the Yamaha PF-1000 is a pretty cool instrument, and one that I'll consider if I swap out my Roland MP-500.

But...if you're got your heart set on a Yamaha CVP or CLP, aren't you just down the road from Cincinnati or Dayton? (Heck, I'd go to Indy or Chicago, if I had to).

Also....even though these pianos appear to have a full-blown case...it's still a knock-down assembly (ala IKEA furniture). If you find the digital you want, you can transport it easily in a minivan, SUV or station wagon, then put its stand together (as long as you have two people to life the keyboard part). Same thing goes if it's shipped to your house.

Thanks, toda and kokomo61; you both were very helpful, as I had assumed a digital piano would arrive intact just like an acoustic piano. So it is good for me to know that they don't. You know how some people are just really handy and can put anything together so it looks fantastic? I am not that person. Even IKEA furniture that I assemble has sagging shelves etc. So that just might tip the balance in favor of dealing with the local yet vaguely slimy guy.

Easy solution -

1) Find better dealers in the Cincinnati or Louisville area. (or Indianapolis, Dayton, etc. - Heck, Sweetwater Sound is in Fort Wayne....)

2) Get the right piano from the dealer YOU want to deal with.

3) Get SO or neighbor or handy student to assist with piano assembly. (I put my MP500 together myself with no help).

4) Enjoy playing!

Don't let the assembly intimidate you. It's really only putting together the legs and bracing with a Masonite/MDF panel for the back. The keyboard part sits right on top of the leg assembly, plug in the pedals and you're done. I found the instructions pretty easy (at least it didn't involve words without vowels, like the IKEA stuff does.... )

I personally don't care to support local dealers for any commodity electronic items. It's a free market, let the market drive it. I include synths, sound modules, etc in that category since every one should/does sound and work exactly the same. A local shop usually adds no value for me so... (I'm an electrical engineer by day so the local support is usually less cluefull than me, and they send it to the factory for warrenty work anyway, I can do that.) your mileage may vary.

However, if I get advice from a local shop and their prices are within 10-15% of the internet I buy there to 'pay' for what I used. But too many local shops are 100% over what you can get from the internet, that is robbery. Funny thing, I just got a wonderful new m-audio firewire 4in/6out box for 180 from an ebay shop, you could buy the same thing off of m-audio's website.. for 350. hahha. let the buyer beware. Am I wrong to have researched on the m-audio website, but not bought there?

However I would never think of buying any kind of acoustic instrument via then internet. ever. Those you gotta play.

tenuki,

I can't agree but that's fine. I question how you would know what a given model sounds like! Perhaps you went to your local shop to hear it, try it out and test the parameters, etc.

That's the unfairness of not buying from your local dealer. How's the local guy to stay in business if all his patrons did that? If everyone did that, he would have to close his doors and you wouldn't have anywhere to go to play it prior to your purchase.

Hey, I look at stuff over the internet as well. Just this week, I "chose" an electric outdoor grill (my complex doesn't allow gas or charcoal grills) on Home Depot's web site and this Saturday, I will go to my local store and purchase it!

Even if there was a difference in price, I still want to feel it, look at the features and make sure it's right for me.

Paul

I recently purchased a roland 300sx from a local store - new, in the box - paid sales tax and still a lower price than I've seen advertised on any website. All local dealers know what the web-site prices are and they must compete accordingly. I felt better being able to try out various pianos before purchasing one and I now have a place to take it should it need service - but I didn't buy the buyer protection plan with extended waranty - it doesn't seem to make sense: why buy something and bet money its going to break? But it was worth a lot to me to be able to first decide which piano to buy, then negotiate a best price. I think face-to-face is the best way to do business, especially with a major purchase.

How is the local ox cart dealer going to stay in business if everyone buys cars! What a lame arguement. You may guilt a few people into paying way more, but overall that kind of thinking will put you out of business in this age.

There are plenty of business models that can work in tandem with the internet, those shops will survive. Guilt and FUD only goes so far as a business plan.

I bought my kurzwile pc88 from Guitar Center way back when, cause their prices were competative and I wanted a place to get a return quick if I needed it. I bought my piano recently at a local business cause I would never buy a acoustic instrument over the internet, they were the most helpful in my search and I liked the stability of their dealership - makes warrentee, etc less painful. Any local dealer that can't attract and keep my business on a fair footing deserves to go under IMHO. It is a new world and the local ma and pa shops need to wake up.

The example I gave, the digital i/o 4/6 in/out box, required simple feature shopping and price comparision, it produces no sound. why would I go into a brick and mortar shop to buy that for 2 times the price? No thank you.

we're not taking ox carts versus cars here. We're talking about the same instrument purchased locally versus over the internet. That's a lame comparison.

I can only hope that someday you have a major problem with a keyboard purchased online and you sent it back and it get's lost, misplaced or it takes 6 months to complete service. If you bought it locally, perhaps having a personal relationship with the "brick & mortar" building would prove a replacement or loaner.

You are very close-minded here and need to see it from other people's perspective. Please don't criticize me for my opinion. It's not very becoming. I am only trying to offer something that might keep local people employed.

Finally, I don't think Guitar Center can be considered a "ma and pa" shop.

thank goodness your mind control powers do not extend to Seattle!

You sound defensive. I think perhaps you get it, but you're not being completely honest with us.

It's not been my experience that local shops charge "twice the price." However, I know little of Seattle other than its awful weather and traffic. Are the "mom and pop's" there really getting rich on their fat profits?

I'm sorry. Let's be serious.

This is not about guilt or mind control, but rather a simple choice in the kind of world in which we choose to live. One wonders how anyone can prefer this global economy in which we now live, but that's another thread...

Know that every action has its effect in our community. Sometimes that "commodity item" is what keeps your neighbor's business afloat. Where will you buy that acoustic piano if you don't support a local music store when you buy the electronic piano that has become over 50% of his business, for instance?

It is true that a fool and his community are soon parted.

Not guilt--just a fact of life in today's economy.

There is really nothing to feel guilty about. You are not a bad person for wanting to save a few bucks.

I do suggest that we all consider our next purchase as to how it effects our town, our area, our country, and the legacy we leave behind for our children and grandchildren.

More FUD. I'm not calling anyone a fool or close minded or wishing bad thing to happen to them. It's hilarious to me that people who are making their arguements based on community are doing this to me in my community. hahahah.

A marketplace in america is a free place. Thank goodness. And if you think telling a buyer how to act is going to change things you are in for a suprise.

Oh, and what if my community is the internet...

My posting on this topic is for one reason only. To represent the view of the typical shopper and to point out we are in a new age, and commodity items are built at the place of cheapest labor and bought over the internet. This is not gonna change. I could care less what people think of me or my buying habits. and guilt is not part of my makeup, never has been.

To refute your only counter argument: I already gave an example of the manufacturer of the product charging almost twice the price _on the internet_ !! I think that is enough data to support my argument???

And yes, Seattle sucks you would hate it here.

My only worry is that in a couple of years I will not be able to try for myself different digitals in some local shop, because that local shop wont be there anymore. This is fine for a lot of electronical stuff, but not for a (digital) piano where the 'feel' of the keyboard is so important.

It is so very tempting to go to a local shop, decide which digital has the best touch and then buy online.

Do not buy into the FUD.

There are plenty of ways a local business can compete in the modern age, spreading FUD is not one of them.

1) have a competative online store + a brick and mortar
2) compete directly with the internet on big ticket items ( a fact you advertise and guaruntee ) and make your money on add-ons. When you go to a restaurant it is the salad that has the highest profit margin in most likelyhood.
3) Provide great service and support. I favor local gear shops with a competent tech and repair department.
4) Find a niche that can't be served by the internet.

Businesses do not 'deserve' to stay in business.